In the second semifnal at the Luke Santi Memorial Tournament, the CWOSSA #1 Bishop Mac Celtics fell to the St. Christopher Cyclones from Sarnia by a 59-56 final.
With Resurrection falling in the earlier semifinal, Bishop Mac would have been the next most appropriate school to win the tournament named after former Rez junior guard Luke Santi --- his parents, Shelagh and Luigi met while students at the Guelph high school.
The game was back-and-forth throughout; St. Chris held a slim 32-30 lead at halftime and was able to lead by 5 in the third --- before St. Chris' superstar guard Mike Rocca picked up his fourth foul with 2:00 to play.
With Rocca on the bench, the Celts made their move in the fourth and were able to take a one-point lead.
Rocca re-entered the game with about 4:45 to play and took the game over ---- not with scoring, but tremendous passing. He found Owen Mainye for his second of two fourth-quarter three pointers in a 1:30 span to give St. Chris the lead......a lead that they did not relinquish.
(Interesting CWOSSA connection: Mainye is the cousin of Resurrection Senior forward Andrew Mwangi).
St. Chris led by 7 down the stretch (55-48) but the Celtics did not give up. Actually, they nailed a couple threes of their own to get it to within 2 with :04 left. With Bishop Mac out of timeouts and the clock running, St. Chris made a serious mental blunder. They inbounded the ball (versus holding the ball out of bounds - the game would have been over), and Rocca was fouled with :02 on the clock.
He promptly made 1-of-2 and Bishop Mac had a chance to heave, but the shot from beyond midcourt was off-line.
Rocca continued to light up the opposition, though Bishop Mac did a great job on him defensively. He tallied 27 points, with a bunch of those coming at the end of the game during what I affectionately call a "foulfest".
Owen Mainye stepped up with 19 points for St. Chris (including the timely three-pointers).
Mitchell Wood & Michael Clouthier were a solid 1-2 punch for Bishop Mac with 20 and 19 points respectively.
The Celtics will play Resurrection CSS in the bronze game, while St. Chris advances to the gold final (5:30pm) against Oakville Holy Trinity.
St. Christopher (Sarnia) 59, Bishop Mac (Guelph) 56
STC: M. Rocca 27, O. Mainye 19, C. Moriarity 7, J. Harris 3, D. Moore 2, A. Dunn 1.
BMac: M. Wood 20, M. Clouthier 19, A. Quintieri 12, J. Kendall 3, A. Visentin 1, V. Soti 1.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
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